Payments to Healthcare Professionals

Collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) or Healthcare Organizations (HCOs) benefits patients. It is a relationship that has delivered numerous innovative medicines and changed the way many diseases impact patients’ lives. Our work together includes a range of activities from clinical research to sharing best clinical practice. As an industry we make payments or ‘transfers of value’ to Healthcare Professionals and Organizations to compensate them for the time spent working with us.

Bringing greater transparency to this already well-regulated relationship builds understanding of this collaboration and addresses public concerns about interactions between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. We believe that openly communicating payments helps foster trust with patients, Healthcare Professionals, government officials and the public, and supports our overall commitment to data transparency and high ethical business standards. Novartis has long been dedicated to improving clinical trial data transparency and discloses relationships with patient organizations.

In several countries, we publish payments to Healthcare Professionals and Organizations in line with local laws or regulations.

EFPIA requires disclosure only by EFPIA member companies, and for prescription pharmaceuticals; however, Novartis has extended this disclosure to include all European Novartis entities and all product segments including over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, food supplements and medical devices.

United States

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NPC) is required each year to submit data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments program (commonly known as the Sunshine Act) as an applicable manufacturer. CMS collects information about certain payments and other transfers of value from applicable manufacturers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to physicians and teaching hospitals. Open Payments is the federally run transparency program that collects information about these financial relationships and makes it available to the public annually through the CMS Open Payments website.

Australia, Japan and Canada

In addition to the EFPIA countries and the United States, we disclose payments and transfers of value in Australia and Japan, in accordance with local requirements. Starting in 2017, we have also begun to voluntarily disclose payments and transfers of value in Canada.